On incorporating uncertainty analysis in abstract building performance simulation tools

Building Performance Simulation (BPS) is a powerful measure to educate the building design process. However, its use in practice is too large extends limited to the detailed design stage dedicated to the code compliance analysis of worked out design proposals. BPS is not much used to support the conceptual design stage (CDS). To date BPS – tools are regarded as pure analysis tools, which do not provide design information. It is hypothesized that, when integrating uncertainty analysis techniques to existing BPS – tools (incremental research approach) valuable design information can be provided. The paper gives an update on the process to integrate an uncertainty assessment capability to a tool specifically developed to support the conceptual design stage. The resulting prototype should be capable of providing information about the deviation of specific design parameters (simulation output) based on the uncertainties of the building concept specification (simulation input). In addition to the total uncertainties, the results also indicate sensitivities of the design parameters as a result of the concept specification variation. This paper describes an approach to add extra-capabilities to legacy simulation tools and presents a comparison of uncertainties and total sensitivities calculated with one detailed design analysis (DDA) tool, IES, and one conceptual design analysis (CDA) tool , LEA. The main focus was herby the representation of material properties and its impact on the model uncertainty.